


Through Another's Eyes

by flipflop_diva



Series: The Ties That Bind [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Backstory, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Family, Gen, Kid Natasha Romanov, POV Natasha Romanov, Pre-Canon, Red Room (Marvel), Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-23 19:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13794531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Natalia was ten years old the first time she began to understand what having a family meant.Part 1 of 3





	Through Another's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raving_liberal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/gifts).



> Happy Purim, raving_liberal!
> 
> Written for the 2018 Purim Gifts fest.

Natalia was ten years old the first time she began to understand what having a family meant.

Of course, she had learned about families in her studies, seen them in movies her instructors had them watch, understood exactly how they operated so, if asked, she could relay story after story of her own precious family and how much she loved them. But she and the other girls in her class knew the truth — families were weakness. Attachments that bound you to other people and held you back. Love, comfort, acceptance. All of those were desires of children that they were better off not having.

Natalia didn’t remember her own parents, nor did she want to. She knew she had been chosen for the Red Room when she was just four years old. One of the youngest.

One of the most special, Madame B. always said.

Some of the other girls would whimper sometimes in their sleep, cry out in the midst of nightmares for a mother or a father that was no longer there. Natalia would scoff at them when they did, feel nothing but disgust. 

They were weak-willed, she knew. They would not survive, and most of them, by the year they had turned ten, had not.

Natalia, however, was the best in her class, and. she knew someday she would make Mother Russia proud by her actions.

Two months after she turned ten, she was given her first assignment out in the world. A practice run to see how well she could fit in to society.

A man who Natalia had seen a few times before, watching the girls during their training sessions, took her to a party at the home of another very wealthy man. She was to befriend the wealthy man’s daughter and try to get information on who the wealthy man was meeting with at his home in recent months.

The girl’s name was Anya, and she was very pretty. Blonde pigtails and bright blue eyes. She was eight years old and very naïve, Natalia thought, after just knowing her for a few minutes.

But Natalia did what she was supposed to do. She made sure to stay by Anya’s side, talking to her, giggling with her, asking her all the questions she had been trained to ask to make the girl feel at ease. And it worked without fail. Anya, with her wide eyes and in a low whisper, like she was telling Natalia a secret, told her all about the creepy men who came to her house in the middle of the night with gifts for her papa.

But she also told her a lot more. About the holidays her papa took her and her mama on. About how her papa would let her dress him in a princess outfit and paint his nails. How he always brought her home special treats every day when he returned to their house.

Halfway through one of Anya’s stories, the man in question appeared behind her and Natalia. He rested his hands on both of their shoulders, the gentle weight of his palm warm on Natalia’s skin.

“Hello, girls,” he said.

“Papa!” Anya squealed, throwing her arms around her father’s waist.

The man smiled and dropped down to a squat, so he was the same level as his daughter. Natalia watched as father and daughter grinned at each other, before the man pulled Anya in for a hug, his fingers tickling her sides as she shrieked with laughter.

“I have brought you something, my darling,” the man said to Anya, and when Anya held her hands out, he pulled a decadent-looking piece of chocolate out from a pocket of his coat. One of the same chocolates the two girls had seen the wait staff carrying out to the party guests just minutes early.

Anya beamed even more at her father, although Natalia would not have thought that possible before it happened.

But then the man turned to her, to Natalia, and reached back into his coat pocket, pulling out another piece of chocolate and handing it to her as well.

Natalia took the chocolate curiously but unsurely. The man noticed her hesitation.

“Don’t worry,” the man whispered to her. “No one will ask where you got it.”

He grinned at Natalia and again at his daughter, reaching out with a hand to tap them both gently on their noses.

“Have fun, girls,” he said, and then he was gone.

Natalia never saw Anya nor her wealthy father again after that night. She relayed to the man who had brought her to the party all the information she had gathered, just as she was supposed to. About the men Anya had seen and what she had seen them do at her house.

But she did not tell him, nor anyone else, about the wealthy man bringing her and Anya the chocolates only the adults were supposed to have. Nor did she mention the way Anya and her father hugged, the way they smiled at each other, the way he made Anya laugh as he tickled her sides.

But that night, and for many, many nights after, that scene replayed itself over and over in Natalia’s head, like a movie she couldn’t turn off.

She did not desire a father, or a family. She did not desire to live in a huge house and have a man bring her chocolates. She did not want to be hugged or tickled. She wanted none of that. She knew that for sure. She only had one thing she wanted, and that was to be loyal to Mother Russia.

But somewhere deep down inside of her, she still felt the weight of the man’s hand on her shoulder, saw the kindly expression in his eyes and sometimes, just for a second, so fast she wasn’t even sure it was real, she felt a twinge of something inside her she had never felt before.

It would be years later before she would understand that what she felt was longing.

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>   
> 


End file.
